Intelligence

Authorities point the finger at militant pro-Taliban leader

Authorities point the finger at militant pro-Taliban leader | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Rory McCarthy Saturday December 29, 2007 The Guardian Pakistani officials said last night they already had evidence from "intelligence intercepts" linking a pro-Taliban militant commander to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and several other suicide bombings.

On the intercept the commander, named
as Baitullah Mehsud, was recorded congratulating his men for the attack
on Bhutto, said Javed Iqbal Cheema, Pakistan's interior ministry
spokesman.

He described Mehsud as an "al-Qaida leader". Mehsud,
who is one of Pakistan's most wanted militants, is known to be a
pro-Taliban commander based in the violent tribal region of South
Waziristan. Before Bhutto flew back to Pakistan in October he was
reported as threatening a wave of suicide attacks against her, but he
later denied making the threat.

Pakistani officials said they believed Mehsud was also behind the
suicide bomb attack on the day of Bhutto's return which left 130 of her
supporters dead. Mehsud was "behind most of the recent terrorist
attacks that have taken place in Pakistan," Cheema said.

The
announcement came as police began the gruesome task of trying to
identify the suicide bomber behind the assassination at the start of a
fraught and difficult investigation.

The bomber's badly burned
head was recovered from the scene of the blast. Saud Aziz, the city's
police chief, said investigators would reconstruct the head and take
DNA samples from other body parts found nearby in the hope that they
could quickly identify the killer.

However, there is already deep
mistrust in Pakistan among many, not just Bhutto's supporters, who
doubt that a small cell of extremists alone was responsible for her
death. At the heart of these fears lies the long and dangerous
association of the Pakistani government and its military with Islamic
militants, in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Bhutto herself warned
before her death that there were powerful figures in Pakistan plotting
to kill her. Yesterday disturbing new evidence emerged of concerns that
Bhutto voiced two months ago.

On October 26, a week after her
return to Pakistan was marred by a first suicide bombing which killed
138 of her supporters, she sent an email to her spokesman in the United
States saying she was anxious that she was not being given enough
security. The email was passed to Wolf Blitzer, a CNN presenter, to be
published if she was killed. In the email Bhutto said if she was killed
it would be the responsibility of Pervez Musharraf, the general who
seized power in a coup and became Pakistan's president.

"Nothing
will, God willing happen. Just wanted u to know if it does in addition
to my names in my letter to Musharaf of Oct 16nth, I wld hold Musharaf
responsible," the email said. "I have been made to feel insecure by his
minions and there is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me
from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or
four police mobiles to cover all sides cld happen without him. B."

Two
days before her return, Bhutto sent Musharraf a letter, giving names
and telephone numbers of several men she believed were plotting against
her. Reports in the Pakistani press said the men included an official
in the Pakistani intelligence agencies, a member of the National
Accountability Bureau, which has long investigated corruption cases
against her, and a former provincial government official. Then after
the first attack on the day of her return, Bhutto asked for
international investigators to be assigned to the case. Her request was
rejected.

Al-Qaida, or militants allied to the group, might have
had a lot to lose if Bhutto had as expected, won next month's
elections. She had spoken repeatedly of her plans to take on the tide
of militancy sweeping Pakistan. Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No 2,
spoke out against Bhutto's return in a video this month and called for
attacks on all candidates in next month's election.

Bruce Riedel,
a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former senior director
for south Asia on the national security council, said al-Qaida had been
trying to kill Bhutto for many years. "If it's not them, it's certainly
one of the groups that are sympathetic with them," he said. "They all
work together and share a common antipathy to Bhutto because she's a
woman, an advocate of secularism, a supporter of democracy and
everything they stand against."

Others say it may be more
complex. "It's going to be very difficult to establish the truth of who
was behind this," said MJ Gohel, the executive director of the
Asia-Pacific Foundation, a security and intelligence thinktank in
London.

"As well as the Taliban and al-Qaida elements, there are
many other candidates - there are elements within the military and
elements within the intelligence services, which never had a good
relationship with Bhutto."

The transcript

A
transcript released by the Pakistani government yesterday of a
purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is
referred to as Emir Sahib, and another man identified as a Maulvi
Sahib, or Mr Cleric. The government alleges the intercepted
conversation proves al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir
Bhutto

Maulvi Sahib Peace be on you.

Mehsud Peace be on you, too.

MS How are you Emir Sahib?

Mehsud Fine.

MS Congratulations. I arrived now tonight.

Mehsud Congratulations to you, too.

MS They were our men there.

Mehsud Who were they?

MS There were Saeed, the second was Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah was also there.

Mehsud The three did it?

MS Ikramullah and Bilal did it.

Mehsud Then congratulations to you again.

MS Where are you? I want to meet with you?

Mehsud I am in Makin. Come I am at Anwar Shah's home.

MS OK I will come.

Mehsud Do not inform their family presently.

MS Right.

Mehsud It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.

MS Praise be to God. I will give you more details when I come.

Mehsud I will wait for you. Congratulation once again.

MS Congratulations to you as well.

Mehsud: Any service?

MS Thank you very much?

Mehsud Peace be on you.

MS Same to you.

December 28, 2007 at 09:07 PM in Al Qaeda, Current Terrorism, Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home